Deadfall by Anna Carey Read Free Book Online Page A

coldmetal platform. You’re expecting a bullet to come through the door at any second. If she has a silencer, she might aim directly in the center of it, expecting the train to cover any noise.
    Instead the door opens. She wedges the barrel of the gun into the gap and nearly gets her hand through before you jab it up, hoping you’ve broken her wrist. She winces in pain and pulls her hand back. You slide the door shut and press your sneaker against the handle to leverage it shut.
    You can feel her struggling against the door. You straighten your leg, putting all the weight of your body against the handle to keep it closed. Someone inside the car says something, and then there’s the welcome sound of brakes. The fluorescent light from the platform is a relief.
    This is Forty-Second Street.
    In the ten seconds between the train stopping and the doors opening, you tuck the knife back in your belt and climb over the chains. You jump the three feet to the platform. Before she’s even off the train you’re lost in the crowd.
    Someone is playing reggae music. The keyboard creates a strange, cheerful melody. When you get to the stairs you take them two at a time, flying past people on their way up. A pack of tourists in Church of Bethlehem T-shirts. A homeless man with two carts behind him, piled high with plastic bags. Your legs are burning as you reach the top of the steps, but you take a deep breath and head toward one ofthe exits. A group is gathered around a steel-drum band. A dozen or so people have their cameras aimed at the singer. You shield your face, making sure there’s no record of you.
    You spot the female hunter first, emerging under a glittering sign that reads SUBWAY . You have a thirty-foot lead on her, but she’s coming in the same direction, moving down Forty-Second Street. There’s a movie theater, rows of restaurants—towering, cartoonish places with glowing marquees. It’ll draw attention, you know that, but you start into a sprint, betting you have a better chance of outrunning them than hiding.
    You head east, and within a few minutes you’re in Times Square. The area is packed. Every five feet someone is trying to hand you something. “Come to our restaurant, try our lunch special.” “Can I ask you a question about your hair?” “Do you like comedy?”
    When you’re close to the corner you glance back. She’s coming after you. She weaves in and around people, offering hurried, flustered apologies as she tries to catch up.
    You make a left down a wide street. There’s an alley up ahead. Before she turns the corner you tear down it, looking for a way into the back of a building. There’s a rusted fire escape behind a Dumpster. You grab the end of the ladder and climb to the third floor.
    Down on the street, you see her run past. She checks the alley, then moves on. You go up another story, then another,your palms burning from gripping the metal. When you reach the roof you’re exhausted. There’s a billboard advertising some financial group named LeMarc Brothers. You ease out behind the sign and let the heavy, spinning feeling of vertigo take you as you peer down.
    She’s stopped at the corner. From five stories up she’s just a shock of red hair, a purple cap. She paces, frantic. Even when the light changes she doesn’t go anywhere. It’s hard to tell if she’s on the phone, but one hand is up, her head tilted. She’s lost you. You’re about to sit back, to wait the rest of the hour out, when a man joins her from across the street.
    It’s a different guy, this one in a black dress shirt and slacks. Bald, sunglasses. He scans the street. It’s only after a minute or two that the man from the train comes up the block, approaching from the other side. The three of them meet there on the corner. The man in sunglasses gestures with his hands, and the woman shows them both her phone.
    Suddenly it’s clear that this isn’t just a hunter and a Stager, or a person sent by AAE to kill